...the mildness to which men ... had yielded was only half of the intoxication of beauty, while the other half ... was of such surpassing and terrible cruelty—the most cruel of men delights himself with a flower—that beauty ... failed quickly of its effect...

Jeremy Davies is made of ink, but don’t dip a feather in him. It tickles. He once painted a fingernail black and no one really noticed. He was disappointed. He’s also an editor, a religious atheist, a liker of strong coffees, a Shakespeare-lover, a political anarchist and someone who rarely has a pen when he needs one. He has been a PhD candidate, a personal trainer, a life model, a bouncer, an infantry soldier and someone who rarely had a pen when he needed one. He has had words published in a variety of places, in a variety of publications, in a variety of forms, in a variety of moments: Canada, Wet Ink, SMS and twelve minutes past three in the afternoon being some of these. His first novel, 'Missing Presumed Undead', will be re-published by Satalyte Publishing in February 2014. A second is on its way.

Okay, so perhaps reading this after The Brothers Karamazov wasn't a good idea, but I do usually like to read something light and genre after something more meaty.

Not in this case.

I was expecting something a little more humourous and parodic, but this book seemed to take itself very seriously, while being of that brand of contemporary fantasy that tries to make social commentary in a ham-fisted way (although making obvious connections between 'whiteness' and being human is kind of dehumanising David Gemmell blurb which had 'wall to wall action...gritty, fast paced'. Maybe there was something more sinister during the ellipse...